Armen Alchian
- For the economic effect of pricing proposed by Armen Alchian, see the Alchian-Allen effect
Armen A. Alchian | |
---|---|
Born | Fresno, California, U.S. | April 12, 1914
Died | February 19, 2013 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | (aged 98)
Nationality | American |
Institutions |
|
Field | Microeconomics Property rights |
School or tradition | New Institutional Economics Chicago School Neoclassical economics |
Alma mater | Stanford University (BA 1936, PhD 1943) |
Doctoral students | William F. Sharpe,[1] David R. Henderson,[2] Steven N. S. Cheung,[3] Jerry Jordan[4] |
Influences | Adam Smith,[5] Ludwig von Mises,[6] Friedrich Hayek[7][8] |
Awards |
|
Armen Albert Alchian (/ˈɑːltʃiən/; April 12, 1914 – February 19, 2013) was an American economist. He spent almost his entire career at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). A major microeconomic theorist, he is known as one of the founders of New Institutional Economics and widely acknowledged for his work on property rights.
Early life and education[edit]
Armen Albert Alchian was born on April 12, 1914 in Fresno, California to Armenian American parents. His father, Alexander Alchian, was born in 1886 in Erzurum, Ottoman Empire[9] and migrated to Fresno in 1901, while his mother Lily H. Normart (1889–1976) was born to Armenian immigrant parents in Fresno. Her parents were among the first Armenians to settle in San Joaquin Valley and she was reportedly the first Armenian born in Fresno.[10][11] Alchian's family was of "modest means."[12] He grew up in the Armenian community, which was initially "subject to intense discrimination."[13] He himself was reportedly subject to anti-Armenian discrimination early in his life.[14]
He attended Fresno High School and enrolled in Fresno State College in 1932. He transferred to Stanford University in 1934, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1936.[12] He earned his PhD in Philosophy from Stanford in 1943.[12][15] His PhD dissertation was titled "The Effects of Changes in the General Wage Structure."[12]
Career[edit]
Alchian worked as a teaching assistant at Stanford (1937–40),[15] and then in 1940–41 he worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Harvard University and in 1942 at the University of Oregon as an instructor.[12] He went on to serve in the Army Air Forces as a statistician between 1942 and 1946.[15][16]
Alchian joined the Department of Economics at University of California, Los Angeles in 1946.[17] He was initially assistant professor (until 1952), then associate professor (until 1958), and eventually named professor in 1958.[15][18] He retired from UCLA in 1984 and was named professor emeritus of economics.[17][15] It was not until 2007 that he closed his campus office.[17] In classroom, Alchian adopted the Socratic method and disliked the traditional lecture method.[19][20]
In 2006 John Riley, chair of the UCLA economics department stated that Alchian was the "father of the modern-day economics department at UCLA, and set the future for it."[21] William R. Allen noted that the department's "golden age" was from 1950 to 1980 because of Alchian's presence and leadership in the department.[21]
Alchian was also affiliated with the RAND Corporation between 1946 and 1964 and was a consultant to business firms.[15] He is best remembered for his work on the hidden costs of regulation at RAND.[17] Alchian was also involved for around 20 years with the Law and Economics Center, a center providing "insight into economic theory to legal scholars and judges" initially affiliated with the University of Rochester.[17]
Research and views[edit]
Alchian was an applied economist.[22] Robert Higgs described him as a master of "applied price theory."[20] Alchian was a neoclassical[23][24] and Chicago School economist.[25][26][27] He is considered to be a founder of the "UCLA tradition"[18][28] within the Chicago School.[29] Alchian, along with James M. Buchanan and Ronald Coase, served as a bridge between the "Old" and "New" Chicago School.[30] Boettke and Candela argue that these three economists founded the following branches in economics: New Institutional Economics, Law and Economics, and the economics of property rights.[30] Indeed, Alchian is widely considered one of the founders of the New Institutional Economics.[31][a] According to Robert Higgs Alchian had the greatest influence, aside from Coase, "in creating and fostering what has come to be known as the New Institutional Economics, one of the most notable improvements in mainstream economics during the past half century.[20]
His views have been described by others as libertarian[33][b] and classical liberal.[35][36][37] He was a member of the libertarian Mont Pelerin Society.[17][38] He advocated laissez-faire economics[39] and free market individualism.[40][41] Alchian listed "self-reliance, independence, responsibility, integrity and trust" as the principles and rules of capitalism and argued that these are antithetical to socialism/communism.[42] Alchian was described by a left-wing commentator as an "ultra-liberal" economist who vigorously defends the idea that capitalism is characterised by the absence of any substantial power relations between individuals.[43]
A large portion of Alchian's contribution is in property rights.[44][c][46] He wrote: "In essence, economics is the study of property rights over resources."[47] Peter Boettke noted in 2015 that Alchian is "recognized as the founder of what was called 'property rights economics' in which he had to re-introduce to the economics profession the important role that property rights play in the determination of economic performance."[48] In the 1960s, Alchian told Eastern Bloc economists that they had to "introduce more private property rights to make markets work the way you think they should work" or else the market allocation will seem to be "perverse or deficient."[49]
Main publications[edit]
Alchian was not prolific and did not author many books and articles.[18][22] However, his few published works are widely cited.[14][18] His writing style is characterized with lack of mathematical formality and is known for its straightforward prose.[20] Harold Demsetz noted that his works are "largely uncluttered with mathematics."[18] Henderson praised his clear writing, noting that Alchian was "one of the last economists of his generation to communicate mainly in words and not equations."[14]
In 1964 Alchian and William R. Allen co-authored University Economics, an influential general textbook[14] that has undergone six editions under two titles.[17][11] It appeared in 1969 under the name Exchange and Production.[15] The collection of his works was first published in 1977 (Economic Forces at Work, Liberty Fund) and 2006 (The Collected Works of Armen A. Alchian, Liberty Fund, two volumes).[11][32] Economic Forces at Work contains his main 18 papers.[15]
His most significant articles are:[15]
- "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory" (1950):[50] It is Alchian's first major paper that brought him attention.[17][14] Called one of the "most important contributions to the economic literature,"[51] the article "pioneered the idea that the price system is a Darwinian mechanism in which efficient behaviors survive, regardless of the motives of economic agents."[22]
- "Information Costs, Pricing and Resource Unemployment" (1969):[52] Alchian considered it his best paper.[53]
- "Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization" (1972)։[54] The article is "credited with introducing the modern theory of the firm, the article looked at how problems associated with team production, such as shirking while leaving others to do the work, affect the organizational arrangements used by firms."[17] It "has become the basis for much of current organization theory, which now concentrates on the issues of team production and incentives that they emphasized."[22] In 2011 it was chosen as one of the top 20 articles published in the American Economic Review between 1911 and 2011.[55] In fact, it is the most cited of all papers published in the 100 years of existence of the American Economic Review[56] and the 12th most cited economic paper between 1970 and mid-2006.[57]
Personal life and death[edit]
Alchian, called "the Armenian Adam Smith" by Michael Intriligator,[18][9] was the only prominent economist of Armenian descent during his career.[45]
Alchian was a resident of Mar Vista, Los Angeles.[17] He was married (since 1940) to Pauline, an elementary school teacher, who he had met at Stanford.[58][17][18] They had two children: Arline Hoel and Allen Alchian.[58][17]
According to David K. Levine, he was an "avid computer user" and an early adopter of email.[59]
Personality[edit]
Daniel Benjamin described Alchian as "fundamentally kind, shy, compassionate, and humble. He was a relentless debunker and intellectual inquisitor, and a passionate champion of individual liberty."[31] William F. Sharpe wrote that Alchian was "personally gentle and traditional," but described him as "clearly an eccentric economic theorist."[60] Deirdre McCloskey described Alchian as "the soul of courtesy." She wrote that "talking about economics with Armen Alchian is like talking about painting with Pablo Picasso" and that his economics "comes from experience of life."[61] Tom G. Palmer wrote of Alchian as a "sober scholar, but not so charismatic."[62]
Alchian was a friend of Milton Friedman.[63] Friedman often quoted him: "The one thing you can be most sure of in this life is that everyone will spend someone else’s money more liberally than they will spend their own."[64] Alchian famously interviewed Friedrich A. Hayek in 1978.[65][66][67]
Golf[edit]
Alchian was a lifelong golfer[58] and a regular visitor to the Rancho Park Golf Course.[11] He often played golf with fellow economist George Stigler.[31] He greatly admired the sport and even wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal in 1977, in which he argued that golf is "not merely a sport. It is an activity, a lifestyle, a behavior, a manifestation of the essential human spirit. Golf's ethic, principles, rules and procedures of play are totally capitalistic. They are antithetical to socialism. Golf requires self-reliance, independence, responsibility, integrity and trust."[42][68]
Last years and death[edit]
According to Steven N. S. Cheung Alchian suffered from a neurodegenerative disease in the last six years of his life.[3] Alchian died of natural causes[11] in his sleep[20] at his home in Los Angeles on February 19, 2013 at the age of 98.[17]
Recognition[edit]
Alchian was among the major economists of the 20th century.[d] Donald J. Boudreaux opined that Alchian was "probably history’s greatest pure microeconomic theorist."[72] Walter E. Williams called him "probably the greatest microeconomic theorist of the 20th century."[73] Friedrich Hayek named Alchian and George Stigler as his favorite active economists in a 1984 interview.[74] In a 2011 survey of around 300 economics professors in the U.S. Alchian ranked 17th in the list of "Favorite Living economists, Age 60 or Older". He received the same points as Robert Fogel and Gordon Tullock.[75] Alchian ranked fourth, behind Tullock, Stigler, and Ludwig von Mises in a 2011 survey asking economists the following question: "One might think of a character-type of economist that is well represented by the following five economists: Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, and James Buchanan. For that character type, which five additional economists would you include in a top-ten list of representatives of that character type?"[76]
A number of economists have cited Alchian as an influence: William F. Sharpe,[77][e] Elinor Ostrom,[78] Harold Demsetz,[79] Steve Hanke,[80] Walter E. Williams,[f] Henry Manne,[81] William R. Allen,[82] Yoram Barzel,[83] David Prychitko,[84] Anthony J. Culyer,[g] and others.
Nobel Prize candidate[edit]
Alchian never received a Nobel Prize, however, several of his colleagues—such as Michael Intriligator,[18] William R. Allen,[85] Donald J. Boudreaux[86]— thought he deserved one.[87][85][88][89][h] Hayek reportedly told David R. Henderson in 1975 that "There are two economists who deserve the Nobel prize because their work is important but won't get it because they didn't do a lot of work: Ronald Coase and Armen Alchian."[14]
Honors[edit]
- Member of the Mont Pelerin Society (1957)[90]
- President of the Western Economic Association International[17] (1975)[91][53]
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978)[92]
- Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (1996)[93][22]
- Adam Smith Award by the Association of Private Enterprise Education (2000)[94]
- Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs[95]
Honorary doctorates[edit]
Tributes[edit]
- The Armen A. Alchian Chair in Economic Theory at UCLA[17] was established in July 1997.[98]
- The Armenian Economic Association presents the Armen Alchian Award since 2014.[99]
See also[edit]
- Daron Acemoglu, another Armenian American economist
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ "Alchian not only remained a giant at the University of California Los Angeles. He was also viewed as a pioneer and co-founder of the New Institutional Economics revival, of which UCLA was at the center."[32]
- ^ Anthony J. Culyer: "Politically, he was a libertarian."[34]
- ^ "He devoted much of his career to studying property rights."[45]
- ^ Liberty Fund: "one of the 20th century’s great teachers of economic science."[69] Walter E. Williams: one of the "top 20th-century contributors to economic knowledge."[70] Geoffrey A. Manne and Todd Zywicki describe him as "one of the great economists of the twentieth century."[51] Donald J. Boudreaux: "20th century's most inspiring economists"[71]
- ^ "Armen Alchian, a professor of economics, was my role model at UCLA," Nobel laureate William F. Sharpe has written. [...] "I have attempted to emulate his approach to research ever since."[17]
- ^ "Back in the late 1960s, during graduate study at UCLA, I had a casual conversation with Professor Armen Alchian, one of my tenacious mentors."[70]
- ^ "Two people more than any have shaped my thinking in economics. One was Armen Alchian and the other Alan Williams."[34]
- ^ Robert Higgs: "Many of Alchian’s students and friends believed that he well deserved a Nobel Prize in economics, but this recognition never came to him."[20]
Citations[edit]
- ^ Wolpert, Stuart (November 5, 1998). "Nobel Laureate William F. Sharpe Awarded UCLA Medal at Ceremony Honoring UCLA Economists". newsroom.ucla.edu. UCLA Newsroom. Archived from the original on 2017-07-25.
Sharpe, who won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990, was a student of Alchian at UCLA and considered him to be a valuable role model as well as his thesis adviser.
- ^ Henderson, David R.; Hooper, Charles L. (2006). Making Great Decisions in Business and Life. Chicago: Park Press. p. 16. ISBN 9780976854104.
I (DRH) ... learned this as a Ph.D. student of noted UCLA economist Armen Alchian.
- ^ a b Cheung, Steven N.S. (February 21, 2013). "Eulogy on Armen Alchian by Steven N.S. Cheung". Hong Kong Economic Journal (in Chinese). Translated by Fred K. Luk; Kam-Ming Wan; Chi-Wa Yuen; Michael T. Cheung. (Archived English version) "My doctoral dissertation, The Theory of Share Tenancy, was written under the co-supervision of Armen Alchian and Jack Hirshleifer."
- ^ "Universal Economics". libertyfund.org. Liberty Fund. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020.
Jerry L. Jordan wrote his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Armen Alchian.
- ^ De Vany, Arthur (July 1996). "Information, Chance, and Evolution: Alchian and the Economics of Self-Organization". Economic Inquiry. 34 (3): 427. doi:10.1111/j.1465-7295.1996.tb01387.x.
Smith and Hayek described it; Alchian gave the evolutionary proof.
- ^ Snow, Nicholas (November 14, 2011). "Mises's Naive View of the State?". Foundation for Economic Education. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action was published in 1949. The book has since gone on to great acclaim in classical liberal and libertarian circles. It influenced more than a generation of economists not only in the Austrian-school tradition but also from the prominent Chicago (such as Gary Becker), UCLA (Armen Alchian), and Virginia political economy (James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock) schools.
- ^ O’Driscoll, Jerry (September 9, 2010). "There is no such thing as macroeconomics". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017.
...the UCLA tradition as by Mises and Hayek. Mises and Hayek had an important influence on that tradition, however.
- ^ Boettke, Pete (December 27, 2010). "Boettke on Mises". EconTalk. Liberty Fund. Archived from the original on 28 February 2019.
...Armen Alchian, but Alchian got a lot of those arguments from Hayek and Mises.
- ^ a b ""The Armenian Adam Smith": UCLA Holds Conference in Honor of Armenian Economist". Asbarez. May 26, 2006. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020.
- ^ Read 2015, pp. 137-138.
- ^ a b c d e "Armen Alchian". Los Angeles Times. Legacy.com. February 24, 2013. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Read 2015, p. 137.
- ^ Alchian, Armen Albert (1977). Economic Forces at Work. Liberty Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780913966358.
- ^ a b c d e f Henderson, David R. (February 19, 2013). "An Economist Who Made the Science Less Dismal". The Wall Street Journal. (PDF)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Beaud, Michel; Dostaler, Gilles (1995). "ALCHIAN Armen Albert (born 1914)". Economic Thought Since Keynes: A History and Dictionary of Major Economists. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 152–153. ISBN 0-415-16454-0.
- ^ Read 2015, p. 139.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Sullivan, Meg (February 19, 2013). "Obituary: Armen Alchian, 98, professor emeritus of economics at UCLA". UCLA Newsroom. University of California, Los Angeles. Archived from the original on 7 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Clough, Richard (May 7, 2006). "An economic tradition". Daily Bruin. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Read 2015, p. 167.
- ^ a b c d e f Higgs, Robert (February 19, 2013). "Armen Alchian (April 12, 1914 – February 19, 2013)". Independent Institute. Archived from the original on 7 January 2020.
- ^ a b Crane, Jennifer (March 7, 2013). "Professor emeritus in economics, Armen Alchian, dies". Daily Bruin. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ a b c d e "Armen A. Alchian: Distinguished Fellow". The American Economic Review. 87 (3). June 1997. JSTOR 2951344.
- ^ DiQuattro, Arthur (May 1980). "The Market and Liberal Values". Political Theory. 8 (2): 188. doi:10.1177/009059178000800204. JSTOR 190794.
Consider what two important neoclassicists tell students in their introductory text, Exchange and Production: Theory in Use. Alchian and Allen write...
- ^ Tieben, Bert (2009). The Concept of Equilibrium in Different Economic Traditions: A Historical Investigation. Rozenberg Publishers. p. 486. ISBN 9789036101097.
In the 1950s, this conclusion provoked a response from the defenders of the neoclassical theory of the firm like Alchian (1950) and Friedman (1953)...
- ^ Mayhew, Anne (2008). Narrating the Rise of Big Business in the USA: How Economists Explain Standard Oil and Wal-Mart. Routledge. p. 79. ISBN 9781135973445.
...Armen Alchian, a widely respected economic theorist associated with the Chicago School...
- ^ McCloskey, Deirdre N. (1994). Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics. Cambridge University Press. p. 160. ISBN 9780521436038.
...that Chicago economists such as Ronald Coase and Armen Alchian first emphasized.
- ^ McAuley, James (1982). "Demain le capitalisme". Quadrant. 26 (1–6): 10.
The best-known leaders — Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Armen Alchian, Ronald Coase, Gary Becker, to mention just a few — belong to what is known as the Chicago School.
- ^ "Armen A. Alchian". Independent Institute. Archived from the original on 7 January 2020.
- ^ Adalian, Rouben Paul (2010). Historical Dictionary of Armenia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-8108-7450-3.
Alchian [...] became recognized as an influential theorist [...] came to from what was called the UCLA tradition within the Chicago school of free-market economics.
- ^ a b Boettke, Peter J.; Candela, Rosolino A. (2014). "Alchian, Buchanan, and Coase: A Neglected Branch of Chicago Price Theory". Man and the Economy. De Gruyter. 1 (2): 189–208. doi:10.1515/me-2014-0022.
- ^ a b c Benjamin, Daniel (February 19, 2013). "In Memoriam: Armen Alchian (1914 – 2013)". Property and Environment Research Center.
- ^ a b Read 2015, p. 166.
- ^ Chickering, A. Lawrence (1993). Beyond Left and Right: Breaking the Political Stalemate. Institute for Contemporary Studies. p. 33. ISBN 9781558152090.
...the libertarian economist Armen Alchian...
- ^ a b Culyer, Anthony J. (2015). "Acceptance Speech: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" (PDF). Value & Outcomes Spotlight. The Office of Health Economics. pp. 32–34.
- ^ Hall, Joshua C.; Lawson, Robert A. (January 2014). "Economic Freedom Of The World: An Accounting Of The Literature". Contemporary Economic Policy. 32 (1): 2. doi:10.1111/coep.12010.
The participants at these early meetings included a veritable Who’s Who of classical-liberal scholars including Armen Alchian, Peter Bauer, Gary Becker...
- ^ Boettke, Peter (9 June 2015). "Pivotal People at Pivotal Times: John Blundell". Adam Smith Institute. Archived from the original on 2 December 2018.
The international movement for classical liberalism... [...] ...to advance the ideas of liberty – the intellectual heritage of [...] of Alchian ...
- ^ Ashford, Nigel; Davies, Stephen, eds. (2012). "Conservatives and classical liberals cited in the text". A Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought. Routledge. p. 280. ISBN 9781136708336.
- ^ "Mont Pelerin Society". DeSmogBlog. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020.
Armen A. Alchian (1914-2013) 1957
- ^ Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (1999). Evolution and Institutions: On Evolutionary Economics and the Evolution of Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 162.
...the kind of Panglossian and laissez-faire conclusions that Alchian and Friedman had proposed.
- ^ Meister, Robert (2012). After Evil: A Politics of Human Rights. Columbia University Press. p. 236. ISBN 9780231150378.
...Alchian's free market individualism...
- ^ Machan, Tibor R. (1975). Human Rights and Human Liberties: A Radical Reconsideration of the American Political Tradition. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers. p. 258. ISBN 9780882291598.
To name just a few who are now engaged in research and analysis pointing to a free market approach to the problems facing us, the ranks include Milton Friedman, Yale Brozen, Harold Demsetz, Armen Alchian...
- ^ a b Alchian, Armen A. (July 13, 1977). "Of Golf, Capitalism and Socialism" (PDF). The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 January 2020.
- ^ Palermo, Giulio (2007). "Misconceptions of power: From Alchian and Demsetz to Bowles and Gintis". Capital & Class. Conference of Socialist Economists. 31 (2): 147–185. doi:10.1177/030981680709200107. S2CID 54869425.
- ^ Alchian, Armen A. "Property Rights". Library of Economics and Liberty. Liberty Fund. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019.
About the Author: Most of his major scientific contributions are in the economics of property rights.
- ^ a b Sanchez, Dan (21 February 2013). "Armen Alchian, RIP". Mises Institute. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Foss, Nicolai J. (1997). "Economics, Institutions and Ludwig Von Mises". Cultural Dynamics. 9 (1): 83. doi:10.1177/092137409700900105.
Menger and Bohm-Bawerk are among the few economists to discuss property rights before Coase, Alchian and Demsetz in the 1960s laid the foundation for the property rights approach.
- ^ Pejovich, Svetozar (1973). "Comment on Paper by Alchian and Demsetz". The Journal of Economic History. 33 (1): 41–42. doi:10.1017/S0022050700076427. JSTOR 2117140.
- ^ Boettke, Peter (June 1, 2015). "The Austrian Tradition in Economics". Libertarianism.org. Cato Institute. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Schroeder, Gertrude E. (Summer 1988). "Property rights issues in economic reforms in socialist countries". Studies in Comparative Communism. 21 (2): 175–188. doi:10.1016/0039-3592(88)90012-9.
- ^ Alchian, Armen A. (June 1950). "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory". Journal of Political Economy. 58 (3): 211–221. doi:10.1086/256940. JSTOR 1827159.
- ^ a b Manne, Geoffrey A.; Zywicki, Todd J. (9 March 2014). "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Behavioral Economic Theory". Journal of Law, Economics and Policy, Forthcoming. SSRN 2406175.
- ^ Alchian, Armen A. (June 1969). "Information Costs, Pricing, and Resource Unemployment". Western Economic Journal. 7 (2): 109–128.
- ^ a b Lott Jr., John R. (July 1996). "Armen A. Alchian's influence on economics". Economic Inquiry. 34 (3): 409–411. doi:10.1111/j.1465-7295.1996.tb01385.x.
- ^ Alchian, Armen A.; Demsetz, Harold (December 1972). "Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization". The American Economic Review. 62 (5): 777–795. JSTOR 1815199.
- ^ Arrow, Kenneth J.; Bernheim, B. Douglas; Feldstein, Martin S.; McFadden, Daniel L.; Poterba, James M.; Solow, Robert M. (February 2011), "100 Years of the American Economic Review: The Top 20 Articles", The American Economic Review, 101 (1): 1–8, doi:10.1257/aer.101.1.1, JSTOR 41038778
- ^ Torgler, Benno; Piatti, Marco (2013). "Top Institutions, Top Papers and Leading Economists Publishing in AER". A Century of American Economic Review: Insights on Critical Factors in Journal Publishing. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 23. doi:10.1057/9781137333056_2. ISBN 978-1-349-46204-9.
- ^ Kim, E. Han; Morse, Adair; Zingales, Luigi (2006). "What Has Mattered to Economics since 1970". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 20 (4): 189–202. doi:10.1257/jep.20.4.189. JSTOR 30033690.
- ^ a b c Read 2015, p. 170.
- ^ Levine, David K. "Armen A. Alchian". dklevine.com. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Read 2015, p. 141.
- ^ McCloskey, Deirdre N. (1996). "Economic Tourism". Eastern Economic Journal. 22 (3): 365–368. JSTOR 40325725.
- ^ Palmer, Tom G. (March 25, 2007). "Oddballs vs. Scholars, For Negative Liberty, Against the Welfare State". cato-unbound.org. Cato Institute. Archived from the original on 4 May 2017.
- ^ Friedman, Milton (2013). Why Government Is the Problem. Hoover Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780817954437.
My old friend Armen Alchian...
- ^ Brunie, Charles H. (April 11, 2007). "My Friend, Milton Friedman". City Journal. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ "Armen A. Alchian interviews Friedrich A. Hayek (Part I)". The Hayek Interviews. Universidad Francisco Marroquín. November 11, 1978. Archived from the original on 10 January 2020.
- ^ "Armen A. Alchian interviews Friedrich A. Hayek (Part II)". The Hayek Interviews. Universidad Francisco Marroquín. November 11, 1978.
- ^ "Tape: Alchian (November 11, 1978)". Nobel-Prize Winning Economist Interviews. Oral History Program, University of California, Los Angeles. 1983. pp. 362–429.
- ^ Calcagno, Peter T.; Whitson, Whitney (June 2011). "Of Golf, Capitalism, and Socialism: An Empirical Analysis". Atlantic Economic Journal. 39 (2): 199–200. doi:10.1007/s11293-011-9267-1.
- ^ "Armen A. Alchian". Online Library of Liberty. Liberty Fund. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ a b Williams, Walter E. (July 4, 2007). "Do People Care?". Townhall. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Boudreaux, Donald J. "Property Rights' Importance". Mercatus Center. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Boudreaux, Don (February 19, 2013). "Armen A. Alchian (1914-2013)". Cafe Hayek. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ Williams, Walter E. (October 11, 2018). "WILLIAMS: Finally, some real economics". Toronto Sun.
- ^ Blanchard III, James U. (June 9, 1984). "Exclusive Interview with F.A. Hayek". Cato Policy Report. VI (5): 10–12. archived text, PDF "Q: Who's your favorite economist, besides F. A. Hayek? Hayek: Well, among the not really young ones are Armen Alchian and George Stigler. Until recently, my dear friend Lionel Robbins, who has had a stroke and is now out of action."
- ^ Davis, William L.; Figgins, Bob; Hedengren, David; Klein, Daniel B. (May 2011). "Economics Professors' Favorite Economic Thinkers, Journals, and Blogs (along with Party and Policy Views)". Econ Journal Watch. 8 (2): 137.
- ^ Klein, Daniel B. (January 2009). "Desperately Seeking Smithians: Responses to the Questionnaire about Building an Identity". Econ Journal Watch. 6 (1): 113–114.
- ^ Lott Jr., John L. "In celebration of Armen Alchian's eightieth birthday". In Lott Jr., John L. (ed.). Uncertainty and Economic Evolution: Essays in Honour of Armen Alchian. Routledge. p. 187.
Bill Sharpe: [...] my days as a masters student when I took Armen’s course in 1956, when he was a relatively young associate professor. First let me first say that Armen, along with Fred Weston and Harry Markowitz, I count as my three mentors, and Armen in very, very large part, so I owe a great deal to him.
- ^ Ostrom, Elinor (February 2011). "Lecture I. Frameworks Lecture II. Analyzing One-Hundred Year-Old Irrigation Puzzles" (PDF). The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Stanford University. p. 116.
I was a student of Armen Alchian in my undergraduate program. [...] As an institutional theorist, I really appreciate Alchian’s approach...
- ^ Demsetz, Harold (March 1987). "An Appreciation of Armen A. Alchian's Contribution to the Theory of the Firm". Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. 143 (1): 3–6. JSTOR 40750949.
- ^ Hanke, Steve (March 6, 2013). "Letter to the WSJ: Armen Alchian's Wise Economics". The Wall Street Journal. Cato Institute. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
- ^ "Henry G. Manne, '52, 1928-2015". law.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago Law School. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020.
His intellectual heroes and intellectual peers were classical liberal economists like Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Mises, Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz...
- ^ Lott, John (December 1978). "Spotlight: Economics Educator". Reason.
He maintains that the two individuals who have had the greatest influence on his life, other than his parents, are Joseph J. Spengler of Duke, who "was an exhaustive type of scholar," and Armen A. Alchian of UCLA, who is almost "an older brother" and who "finds economics behind every rock."
- ^ Lueck, Dean (February 2005). "Yoram Barzel and the New Institutional Economics": 7. doi:10.2139/ssrn.744224. SSRN 744224.
More generally Barzel has been heavily influenced by Armen Alchian and a great admirer of him.
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(help) - ^ Prychitko, David L. (November 21, 2010). "That's Interesting, But Does It Pass The Alchian Test?". coordinationproblem.org. Archived from the original on 14 September 2015.
I was raised on Alchian & Allen, having learned most of my economics from two of Alchian's students from the 1960s, Phil May and Howard Swaine. Alchian ranks, with Mises and Hayek, among my favorite and, I believe, most insightful, economists.
- ^ a b Read 2015, p. 168.
- ^ Boudreaux, Donald J. (October 5, 2016). "And the Nobel Prize in Economics Should Go To..." Foundation for Economic Education. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020.
- ^ McChesney, Fred S. (2014). "Magnus Magister: An Affectionate Appreciation of Armen Alchian". Journal of Law, Economics & Policy. 10 (3): 597. S2CID 185331687.
At the end of the day, was the denial of Nobel status to Armen Alchian unjust? Yes, to many of us at least.
- ^ Carden, Art (January 8, 2019). "In Memoriam: Harold Demsetz, 1930-2019". Forbes.
Armen Alchian. Gordon Tullock. William Baumol. Now Harold Demsetz. The list of economists who should have won the Nobel Prize but didn't...
- ^ "Deserving Nobelists". Reason. January 2011.
1. Armen Alchian, University of California at Los Angeles. No scholar has matched Alchian's brilliance at identifying the full range of constraints and opportunities that guide human action and at explaining how these constraints and opportunities influence the evolution of social institutions, such as the firm and the not-for-profit university.
- ^ "MONT PELERIN SOCIETY DIRECTORY – 2010" (PDF). DeSmogBlog.
Professor Armen A. Alchian 1957, Life Member
- ^ "Past Presidents" (PDF). 92nd Annual Conference Program. Western Economic Association International. June 2017. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 January 2020.
- ^ "Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1780-2019 -- A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2020.
Alchian, Armen Albert (1914-2013) Election: 1978, Fellow
- ^ "Distinguished Fellows". American Economic Association. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020.
- ^ "Adam Smith Award". apee.org. Association of Private Enterprise Education.
- ^ "Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy" (PDF). About the IEA. Institute of Economic Affairs. p. 107. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 November 2019.
Honorary Fellows: Professor Armen A Alchian
- ^ "Commencement" (PDF). Rochester Review. University of Rochester: 20. Summer 1983. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-01-09.
When the 1983 Commencement finally ended, four weeks after it began, some 2,100 new degrees had been awarded, including three more honorary doctorates: to the distinguished economist Armen A. Alchian of the University of California at Los Angeles (at the GSM exercises)...
- ^ "Honorary Doctoral Degrees". ufm.edu. Universidad Francisco Marroquín. Archived from the original on 2011-05-01.
May 8, 2010 ARMEN A. ALCHIAN
- ^ Levine, David K. "The Armen Alchian Chair in Economic Theory". dklevine.com. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020.
- ^ "Best Paper Awards". Armenian Economic Association. Archived from the original on 10 January 2020.
Bibliography[edit]
- Read, Colin (2015). The Corporate Financiers: Williams, Modigliani, Miller, Coase, Williamson, Alchian, Demsetz, Jensen and Meckling. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-34128-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Armen Alchian publications indexed by Google Scholar
- 1914 births
- 2013 deaths
- Economists from California
- 20th-century American economists
- American people of Armenian descent
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- People from Fresno, California
- Stanford University alumni
- University of California, Los Angeles faculty
- Ethnic Armenian economists
- New institutional economists
- Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association